Criterion‘s new 4K edition of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me does not build in any major way on the features present in the previously released Criterion Blu-ray. The special features are all previously seen, including a book of excerpts from Chris Rodley’s Lynch on Lynch. There’s no groundbreaking new documentary, no new analysis, nothing of that sort. So, why is this worth buying?
I’ll admit to being a bit stingy (financially speaking) with my own slow embrace of 4K, but if ever a filmmaker benefited from the enhanced detail and depth of an image, it’s David Lynch. This is a man who wanted, with every new project, to create a series of visual, sonic, and emotional impressions on his audience, then allow them to study those impressions on their own. With a few notable exceptions, his work avoids clear interpretation beyond certain key plot and character details. If you’re a Lynch fan, you long for that feeling of seeing deeper into his mind, even if you never actually get there. A 4K release of arguably his most harrowing feature film release allows us the chance to do that.
And the new Fire Walk With Me Criterion disk does not disappoint. Like the film itself, it overwhelms with sensation, preserving a certain aura in this prequel/sequel/neo-noir nightmare that I genuinely thought I’d only ever feel after seeing the movie for the first time.
Lynch’s films, governed by a sound approach to craft as well as a famous reliance on instinct and meditative intuition, fare well on rewatches because they are simply too dense to absorb completely the first time, but also because he designs his story to deliberately change meaning based on how you’re feeling. I’m convinced of this, that Lynch built these prisms into every frame of his work, daring you to tilt your head and see the colors another way, because I feel it every time I rewatch something he made.
This time around, the color that leapt out at me was green.
All the usual, well-remembered elements of the Twin Peaks palette are present, of course, from the warm, liminal tomes of the Palmer family stairwell to the grit and grime of the trailer park to, of course, the Gothic crimson curtains of the Black Lodge. But it was green – specifically the pale, jade green of the Owl Symbol ring that plays a pivotal role in the film – that sprouted in my brain this time, grew up verdant and fragrant and wild.
When we think of Twin Peaks we think of red, white, and black. These are vital to the show’s visual language, from the booths at the RR diner to the sinister zigzag floor of the Black Lodge. But green is also always there; it has to be, because the trees Agent Dale Cooper can’t get enough of are evergreens. Green is present in the forest, in the well-manicured lawns of the Palmers’ neighborhood, and eventually, by The Return, in Dougie Jones’ loud lime jacket. In Fire Walk With Me, it’s a color of particular import because of that ring, which vanishes Agent Chet Desmond (Chris Isaak) into eternity and, eventually, saves and damns Laura Palmer at the same time.
Once you notice that particular shade of green, made more distinct by the 4K image of the ring appearing beneath a trailer, you start to see it all over the place, particularly all over the Palmer house. It’s in the kitchen, in the dining room, in Laurie’s bedroom, and in the living room where Sarah Palmer’s ashtrays overflow with spent cigarettes. It’s not quite the same shade as the evergreens all over town. It’s paler, more fluid and fleeting. If the green of the trees is the green of life, this green is somehow the green of half-life.
Which is appropriate, because every time we see Laura, we see her on borrowed time, and she seems to know it. Sheryl Lee in this film remains my favorite single performance in all of Twin Peaks because she is so good at playing a wounded girl who simultaneously believes herself to be damned and wants desperately to escape. It’s not hard to envision a Christ metaphor here, as Laura pleads with some unseen force to take this cup from her. Her fate is dark no matter which path she chooses.
And while there are many interpretations of how exactly the Owl Ring works in Twin Peaks, it’s clear that Laura’s decision on whether or not to wear it in the end makes an impact not just on her eventual fate but on the fates of the dark forces in the town, BOB chief among them. We know Laura Palmer dies, but by the end, we see that her death actually meant something, and perhaps put off the inevitable rise of BOB by, say, 25 years or so. She not only fought, but she won and lost at the same time. This particular shade of green, the green of the Ring, is a symbol of that impossible choice, haunting Laura for a full week before she can actually make a crucial decision.
But I probably wouldn’t be thinking about any of this if it weren’t for this 4K release, and the way the greens pop on the screen. That’s the magic of David Lynch. The longer you look, the more his work gives you.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me 4K Edition is available now from Criterion.
